


Happiness Is a Red Tail

by onstraysod



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Loneliness, M/M, Major Fox, Self-Doubt, Strange/Grant if you squint, Team Peninsula, animals!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lonely, frustrated, and miserably cold, Jonathan Strange receives some unexpected comfort from Major Grant, thanks to a transformation spell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness Is a Red Tail

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of a Team Peninsula Animals!AU series that also includes solitaryjo's [The Curious Incident of the Fox in the Wartime](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6021799/chapters/13814611), [The Thrill of the Chase](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6021799/chapters/13814659), [The Call of the Wild](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6021799/chapters/13814706), and [The Perils of Fatherhood](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6059485).

Jonathan Strange was not in the best mood that January evening.

The mails had come earlier in the day and, yet again, there had been no letter from Arabella. Doubts that he would never before have entertained crept unbidden into his mind. Had she tired of waiting for him? Had she left Soho-square and returned to her brother’s house, disgusted with her magician and with the magic that had taken him from her? Had she received none of his letters and believed that he had forgotten about her? Or, worse yet, that he had been killed? A million fears wrapped themselves around him and would not let him go. They gnawed at him with cold teeth and that was the very last thing he needed that night.

It was bone-numbingly cold. So cold that the roaring campfire Jonathan huddled near barely seemed to make an impression upon his frigid flesh. The wine helped, a little, but its warmth didn’t seem capable of struggling out beyond the pit of his stomach. And to add insult to injury, someone had stolen into his tent and pilfered his thickest blanket.

“Soldiers are notorious blanket thieves,” Grant told him, taking a seat at the fire beside Jonathan and handing him a fresh bottle of wine. “You know you’ve been accepted in the ranks when you have your first blanket stolen.”

“I might find that more comforting if I weren’t likely to freeze for the honor.” Jonathan winced to hear his teeth chattering as he spoke.

Grant smiled and put a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I’m sure we can scrounge up a spare blanket for you somewhere, Merlin. Though some might say you should be able to conjure one into existence.”

Jonathan groaned. “I’m afraid I have not yet been made privy to such helpful spells. If they exist at all they are probably in the books my tutor has felt it right to keep from me. Instead I have come to the Peninsula armed with the knowledge of how to make it rain or — or how to create gleaming warrior angels to give chase to the French. Hardly helpful for keeping warm.” Jonathan took a bitter swig of wine. “Or for helping to win this war. Admit it, Grant: I’m a spare bit of baggage. Minus one blanket.”

“No you are not: now stop talking such nonsense, Merlin, or I shall take that wine away.” Grant laid his hand on Jonathan’s arm, shaking it slightly to get his attention. “Streams and rivers have been moved out of our way, roads have been built where none existed, storms have blown down upon the French Army and impeded their progress and made them absolutely miserable. All of that is your doing. Did you think we had another magician tucked away somewhere among our cannon? We do not. His Lordship can accomplish a great many things, but moving a river is one thing he cannot do. We need you, Merlin.”

Jonathan shook his head and looked sideways at Grant with one arched eyebrow. “You, Major Grant? You seem quite capable of fording rivers and disappearing from Frenchmen without my assistance. Do you need me?”

He said it with complete innocence, without thinking, and only after the words had left his mouth did Jonathan consider how they sounded. The first warmth he’d felt in hours flooded into his face and he glanced quickly at Grant, then took a long drink from the wine bottle.

If Grant had thought there was anything untoward in the question he did not show it. “Of course, Merlin. Of course I need you. We all do. The visions you conjure in your dish — of French positions, of the strength of their entrenchments–-"

Perhaps he’d drank too much. A sudden recklessness took hold of Jonathan and he blurted out: “That’s not what I meant, Grant. Me — do you need me?”

Grant’s mouth opened on a word, closed. He coughed, looked down at his hands. “Merlin, I--"

“No, please.” Jonathan set down the wine bottle, rubbed his temples with both hands. “Forgive me. I don’t know what’s come over me this evening. I suppose it is the New Year and not having had a letter from Arabella since…” He sighed and shivered, his whole long frame shaking with the cold and his own desperation. “I cannot even remember how long it’s been…”

“Merlin.” Grant drew closer to him and laid a hand upon his back. “I will not even pretend to understand how difficult this must be for you. Being at war for the first time and subject to all its deprivations. Being separated from your wife. I have always been a soldier, so I cannot imagine anything but this life. Living in the field upon rations, sleeping in the open in any kind of conditions…” Grant glanced up at stars: their very crispness in the sky suggested coldness. “Though I’ve been fortunate not to have to endure many nights like this one.”

“Do you know when I miss her the most, Major Grant? My wife?” Jonathan asked, his mind wandering to Soho-square, the nape of a white neck framed by dark curls. “When I’m laying in my camp bed at night.”

Grant cleared his throat. “Merlin, I— I believe I understand— There’s no need to elaborate--"

“What? No! No, no, no. I don’t mean that. Well — I mean, yes, I do miss that. But what I meant is that I simply miss her, the feel of her next to me, the warmth of her in the darkness. It’s — comforting somehow, the closeness of another living being… The feel of another heartbeat, another’s breath against one’s skin…“

They sat for a few minutes in silence, Jonathan resting his head in his hands, Grant looking thoughtful. Suddenly the major stood and, to Jonathan’s great surprise, he untied his uniform sash and began unbuttoning his uniform coat.

"What–- what in God’s name are you doing, Grant? You’ll freeze!”

Grant smiled. “I doubt that very much, Merlin. In fact, I’ve just realized that you - great magician as you are - have given me a most excellent way to pass this bitterly cold night in perfect comfort. A comfort that will require no blankets, coats - or any clothing at all, for that matter.”

Jonathan stared. "What--"

"Here.” Grant laid his coat over Jonathan’s shoulders and, though balking at the gesture, Jonathan instinctively pulled it closer about him. “Put that on, wrap the sash around your neck, then go to your tent and get in your cot, quick as you may. I promise you, you’ll soon be warmer there than you are out here.”

“Major Grant-- I don’t understand you. This coat isn’t going to make that much of a difference to me and you’ll have sacrificed your own comfort for nothing. Unless there’s some magic in Army coats that I’m not aware of.”

“The magic’s not in the coat,” Grant said with a wink, and Jonathan noticed that the major was holding something tightly in one fist. He left the campfire then, walking in the direction of his own tent, shivering slightly in his shirtsleeves, and Jonathan shook his head in bewilderment. Finishing off the last of the wine, he heeded Grant’s advice and went to his cot, climbing beneath the one light blanket he had left, still wearing Grant’s coat.

He had been right, of course. The coat didn’t make much of a difference. Jonathan huddled down into it, pulling the collar up against his jaw. It smelled like Grant - a sort of smoky, spicy scent - and for some reason Jonathan found that both comforting and exciting, a little tingle starting up at the base of his spine. He inhaled deeply, filling his nostrils with Grant and wondering even as he did it why he was doing it, why it made him feel the way he felt. But then he shivered, the cold worming its way deeper into his bones, and all he could think about was how desperately he wished to be warm.

There was a rustle at the flap of his tent and Jonathan cursed, realizing that he must have failed to secure it tightly against the ever rising wind: the thought of having to uncurl his limbs and lose even the modicum of warmth his body had generated was torturous. But just as he had steeled himself to the necessity there was a sudden movement of the cot, something brushed against his legs, and Jonathan found himself staring at a pair of dark eyes glinting at him in the darkness.

“Good God! What--"

The fox stepped gingerly over Jonathan’s thigh, its face looming up from the shadows very close to Jonathan’s own. A wet, whiskered nose inched toward Jonathan’s, sniffing softly, brows twitching above gleaming, liquid eyes, a golden necklace just visible at its neck. Jonathan’s breath caught in his throat.

“M-- Major Grant? Is that you?” Jonathan sputtered in surprise. “Do you – do you know me?”

The fox gave him what Jonathan was quite certain was a withering look, as if to say: if I did not know you, why would I be on your cot? It - Major Grant, Jonathan had to remind himself - simply made a kind of snuffling sound, then turned in a semicircle and laid down, pressing his body firmly against Jonathan’s chest. His voluminous tail, meanwhile, curled around and fit beneath Jonathan’s chin, laying over his neck like the thickest and warmest of scarves.

Once he’d gotten over the initial shock, Jonathan felt the difference immediately. The heat of the fox’s - of Major Grant’s - body positively radiated through him, his fur a buffer against the worst of the chill that stole through the canvas walls of the tent. Jonathan could feel the rise and fall of the major’s chest as he breathed through his vulpine nose; he could feel, too, the drumming of the major’s animal heart echoing against his human sternum. The sensations made Jonathan ache with need and yet, at the same time, a gratitude so powerful it raised a knot in his throat swept over him. He brought one hand out from beneath the blanket and laid it upon a furry hip.

“Thank you, Grant.”

The fox merely wriggled closer against Jonathan, then gave a contented, sleepy sigh. Jonathan curled his body about the fox and tilted his head down to bury the tip of his nose in the abundant fur of that tail. His shivering ceased, the chattering of his teeth ended. And thoroughly warm at last, he slept.


End file.
